A policy decision at the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office will drastically change the way the media, WOKV included, gets and reports information to the public.
The JSO will be taking back its police radios from all newsrooms. For more than five years the media has been leasing out radios to be able to monitor police scanner traffic.
Undersheriff Dwain Senterfitt told several media representatives that the concerns were budgetary. "We're going to have to have a couple hundred radios for people who are going to staff the courthouse," said Senterfitt.
An offer was made to buy the radios, that was turned down, as was an offer to buy personal scanners and have JSO provide the encryption key to listen in.
"The budget is the big issue here and we are not in a position where we're going to let people decide to buy our radios," says Senterfitt.
As of right now the frequency is free and opened to the public but the channels in which the sheriff's office operates on, those are encrypted. Undersheriff Senterfitt says they have 15-16 different channels. The media is currently allowed access to six. The others are tactical channels meant to be used during investigations and high risk operations.
This will be the first time in recent city history that no one other than police, not the public or the media will be capable of tuning in on police scanner traffic, not even a delayed feed.
Other concerns, safety of the officers and the integrity of their investigations.
Undersheriff Senterfitt told representatives with the media he did not want news trucks beating police officers to a crime or emergency scene, because that could create safety issues.
No specific examples of this happening were citied.
"We don't hide anything. There are things we sometimes can't release because it will affect our investigation, and that is priority to catch the person committing the crime we are investigating."
Those cases could be completely performed through a tactical channel, Senterfitt said they can't always change from one to the other during the operations.
Without scanners media outlets would be without timely information on what JSO considers minor incidents such as car crashes without a fatality, robberies, or burglaries.
Media outlets will be left with EARS alerts, which notify news media of high profile incidents like homicides. A list of 18 types of incidents has been provided by JSO on what will be included in the EARS alerts; that list may change as time goes on.
We’ve heard from several listeners that this poses a transparency concern. Scanners will have to be returned by the end of August.